Happy Write About It Wednesday, Writers! On Tuesday, I had a consultation for Sensory Deprivation and Float Therapy. Today, I will be floating in the Sensory Deprivation tank for the first time.
A flotation tank is a lightless, soundless tank filled with highly concentrated Epsom salt water heated to skin temperature. Flotation, also known as sensory deprivation, is simply the act of relaxing in a flotation tank; with all sights and sounds removed, and drifting into a meditative state that rejuvenates your mind and body. 
Sensory Deprivation
Sensory deprivation is the removal of stimuli from the senses. In a float tank, sight and sounds are removed. The air and water are also heated to skin temperature, so it becomes impossible to know where your skin ends and the water begins. And, of course, you are floating. As I am writing this I haven’t experienced it yet, but I imagine it’s like floating in space!
Floating in a tank creates the perfect conditions for removing all external stimuli. This is the sensory deprivation element. Your vision is restricted in the pitch black; apparently you can hear nothing but your own body. You are completely buoyant in the Epsom salt water. This supposedly leads to a feeling of zero gravity with no real concept of up, down, time or space. I am so excited to try it out!
Flotation Therapy
The science of sensory deprivation is known as Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy (REST). REST in a float tank has shown a transition from alpha or beta brainwaves to theta, which would ordinarily only occur before sleep and waking. In a flotation tank, theta brain waves occur whilst the user is fully conscious. For many users, this allows for great creativity and problem-solving. I definitely love the idea of increased creativity! YAS! Help me write even more books and blog posts!
Relaxation
The environment in the float tank completely isolates the senses and blocks out all distractions including gravity, temperature, touch, sight and sound. This leaves you in a deeply relaxed and meditative dream-like state like the state you enter just before you go to sleep.
Your brain uses a lot of power to deal with the strain of gravity on the body, however, in an isolation tank, your body and mind is freed from gravity so can fully relax. As a result, the brain does not need to send out any commands to the body so activity in the logical side of the brain synchronizes with the creative hemisphere.
This changes the brainwaves from alpha to frequency delta and theta waves, causing you to enter the meditative dream-like state whilst fully conscious.
Benefits
Flotation can benefit everyone, from athletes and creatives to businesspeople, the elderly, and those with medical issues. Flotation is a form of alternative medicine and boasts an extensive wealth of benefits:
- Stimulates the release of endorphins
- Creates calm and total relaxation
- Rejuvenates the mind and body
- Alleviates mental and physical stress
- Helps with fatigue and jet lag
- Improves sleep and insomnia
- Improves creativity, healing, and visualization
- Expands awareness and heightens senses
- Enhances mental clarity and deepens your mental state
- Improves self-realization and discovery
- Helps with anxiety, depression, and motivation
- Helps with phobias and addiction
- Helps with PTSD symptoms
- Decreases the perception of pain
- Relieves bones, joints, muscles
- Relieves aches, pains, and strains
- Relieves arthritis, migraines, and rheumatism
- Relieves fibromyalgia
- Helps with pregnancy pain
- Increases blood circulation and lowers blood pressure
- Improves immunity
- Helps athletes produce less cortisol, adrenaline, and lactic acid
- Helps athletes visualize their performance for success
- Helps athletes master the inner game and synchronize mind, body, and emotion
- Reduces the risk of further injury and overtraining
- Resets the body’s chemical & metabolic balance
- Speeds up the healing process and recovery
All of this sounds just so good for my Ankylosing Spondylitis, Fibromyalgia, PTSD, Anxiety, and Depression. I’m so excited to try it out. I’ll probably do a little before and after video on my Instagram to let y’all know how it goes.
Since I am trying out this new treatment today, I thought Alternative Medical Care would make for an interesting Write About It Wednesday theme for today’s writing prompts. So far in my writing, medical treatment hasn’t played a very big role. Just brief mentions of hospitalization or treatment. For example, in FRIENDZONE, Mikayla is being treated by a psychologist for her depression, anxiety, and grief.
Write About:
- An alternative medical treatment that you’ve experienced or wanted to try.
- Medical care in your WIP. Any characters experience medical treatment. Is medical treatment the same in your setting as it is here today?
- Write about someone who develops a new medical treatment. What are they treating? How did they come across this new treatment? Why do they want to treat this particular ailment?
- Write about a character that is nervous for their treatment. What are they being treated for? Is it an invasive procedure?
- Write about a character that seeks out alternative care from someone other than a typical healer. Do they go to the Fae? Aliens? The witch on the edge of the woods?
Have medical treatments played much of a role in your writing in the past? Do your characters frequently get injured and have to bandage themselves up? Or do they seek long-term treatment for a chronic condition? Have you considered what your characters health is like? Do they get regular checkups, or do they hate going to the doctor/healer? Let me know in the comments!
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I hope you enjoy today’s writing prompts!
Until next time,
Write on, Writers!
Michelle C. Hillstrom - Author 
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